Arts & Culture

A one-of-a-kind house sits on what was once a barren promontory in Idaho’s Hagerman Valley. In the mid-1950s, landscape painter Archie Teater and his wife commissioned arguably the world’s most famous architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, to design a studio for them.

Performers of Indian dance often rely on dramatic facial expressions and hand gestures to entertain and tell stories. Their bright costumes and eye makeup may stand out the most for those who are unfamiliar with the South Asian art form, or have glimpsed it only in Bollywood films. But those expressions and gestures are rooted in ancient Indian folk dance and classical forms like Bharatanatyam: a dance with spiritual qualities that has been performed in South Indian temples for centuries.

Brenda Stanley worked in television news for decades before becoming a full-time author. She joins Idaho Matters on Monday, July 30, 2018 to talk about writing from her experiences.

She's a former journalist, who wrote books on the side, until she took the plunge to become a full-time writer in 2015. Now Brenda Stanley is an author with eight books to her credit. When her novel, "The Color of Snow" did well, she decided to quit her job in journalism and focus on writing. Her latest book, "The Treasure of Cedar Creek" is a mystery/thriller, set in the Idaho wilderness.

Jimmy Hallyburton discusses the first ever Goat Head Fest with Idaho Matters on Wednesday, July 25, 2018.

Boise bicyclists were disappointed to hear the "Tour de Fat" bike festival would not be returning this year, so area organizers put together their own festival. We speak with Jimmy Hallyburton, Executive Director of the Boise Bicycle Project, about the upcoming Goat Head Fest.

It’s been nearly a month after a mass stabbing in Boise left one child dead and eight other people hospitalized – all of them refugees. Now, the city’s arts community is adding its voice to those supporting the victims.

Boise Basque Center board member Alicia Lachiondo describes the region's Basque heritage and the upcoming San Inazio Festival with Idaho Matters on Tuesday, July 24, 2018.

The San Inazio Festival is an annual event to honor St. Ignatius of Loyola, the patron saint of the Basques. It began more than 25 years ago and now thousands come to the Basque Block at the end of every July to see local musicians and dancers as well as Basque sporting events.

The bitter Italian cordial Aperol is in short supply and area bartenders and cocktail entusiasts want to know why the popular summer spritzer liquor is so hard to find. On Monday's Idaho Matters, we ask a Boise mixologist why.

Richard Lane, 1969/Courtesy Basque Library at the University of Nevada, Reno

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Idaho Matters presents a piece from the Kitchen Sisters discussing the Basque tradition of the Sheepherder's Ball on Friday, July 20, 2018.

In the 1930s and 40s, hundreds of Basque people were brought to the western United States to do the desolate work that no one else would do—herding sheep. Alone for months at a time with hundreds of sheep, the Basque improvised songs, baked bread in underground ovens, carved poetry and drawings into the Aspen trees, listened to The Basque Radio hour traditional music and messages between the herders out in the isolated countryside—looking forward to The Annual Sheepherder’s Ball.

Zachery Turpin describes his quest for the lost books of Walt Whitman with Idaho Matters on Tuesday, July 17, 2018.

Walt Whitman's works have been analyzed by scholars since his passing in 1892 and University of Idaho American literature assistant professor Zachery Turpin is digging through archives and manuscripts in search of Whitman's "lost" works. Turpin joins us to talk about his quest for literature's "National Treasure."